1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to television advertising and, more particularly, to a system, computer code and method for automatically managing avail inventory data and avail pricing for a communications network.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Television service providers (e.g., broadcast TV networks, cable TV networks) allocate a limited number of advertisement spots (or “avails” hereinafter) for each television channel or program within a certain time duration. These avails or the time slots in the channels (i.e., day part and channel) corresponding to these avails are sold to advertisers who want to advertise their products and/or services.
Typically, sales representatives from the television service provider solicit sale of avails/time slots from media agencies, business owners, or any entity interested in advertising (hereinafter “advertiser”). The sales representatives contact advertisers who might be interested in placing their advertisements in these time slots. To persuade the advertiser to purchase certain avails/time slots, the sales representatives may present to the advertiser statistical and geo-demographic data indicating that the viewers of the TV programs tied to these avails can be the advertiser's potential customers.
Once the advertisers decide to purchase a particular avail or multiple avails (or time slots), the sales representatives report the purchase agreements back to the central office at the television service network. The details of the purchase agreements are manually entered into the main computer at the central office for billing and accounting purposes. Then the clerks at the central office schedule the insertion of the advertisements into the avails of television programming streams based on these purchase agreements.
The advertisements of these advertisers are inserted into the purchased avails of television programming streams at a head end of the television service providing system, and the television programming streams with the inserted advertisements are broadcast to all subscribers of the television service network. Because the advertisements are tied to the specific channels and/or programs, any viewer who is tuned to the particular channel or program will see the inserted advertisements. However, the displayed advertisements may not draw the interests of all those viewers who are watching the channel since different viewers have varying interests, hobbies, backgrounds, and preferences. Therefore, this type of TV advertising has limited effectiveness.
With modern digital television service methods such as switched digital video (SDV) systems (in which television service is received over the telephone lines) via very high speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) which utilizes the concept of addressable set top boxes (STBs) which are coupled to the front end of the subscriber's television and process the data stream before forwarding a channel to the television, more personalized service is now available. For instance, two-way communication between the subscriber's set top box and the service provider via the network is possible. Further, the service provider can send different data to different subscribers. In telephone line based systems such as SDV, the service provider can actually send different information to any individual subscriber. In many digital cable systems, different data can be sent to different groups of subscribers, e.g., through addressable STBs or cable nodes serving several hundred subscriber households.
Using these modern digital television service systems, targeted TV advertising with increased effectiveness is possible. In accordance with one targeted TV advertising method, advertisements that have been prepared to interest particular subscribers of the television service network are inserted into the avails of the television programming stream for those particular subscribers, so that different subscribers of the same television program may view different advertisements that are particularly directed to them. PCT Patent Publication No. WO 99/66719 entitled “Techniques for Intelligent Video Ad Insertion,” which is herein incorporated by reference, discloses at least one such scheme. Other such schemes are discussed in parent Provisional Patent Application No. 60/229,156.
Even in such advertising systems, however, the television service providers still sell and manage the avails/time slots through personal contact (e.g., via sales representatives) as it is done in conventional TV advertising systems. This conventional avail management process, unfortunately, can be extremely time consuming and inefficient for a number of reasons. For example, it requires person-to-person communication between the sales representatives and advertisers. The sales representatives must spent much time and energy in preparing their presentations so that the advertisers would be interested in purchasing the avails/time slots. Further, the sales representatives must communicate all avail purchase agreements back to the central office. All this requires time and energy on the part of the sales representatives. Moreover, the conventional avail management process is prone to human error because the sales representatives must communicate the details of the purchase agreements back to the central office, which are entered into the main computer manually. In addition, the use of the conventional process inconveniences the advertisers because they have to adhere to the schedule of the sales representative in order to purchase avails and to inquire into the availability and pricing of the avails.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a technique by which advertising and sale of avails can be automated-to expedite the avail management process.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a computerized avail management technique for use with targeted television advertising schemes.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a computer-implemented method and system for automatically managing avail inventory data and avail pricing for a communications network such as a cable TV network.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a computer program product for managing avail inventory data and determining avail prices for advertiser-preferred market segments.